Surviving The Fourth Intelligence Revolution with Dr. Anthony Vinci

Spies focused on presidents and generals during the Cold War, and intelligence agencies ignored average citizens. The stakes involved nuclear codes and troop movements, but former intelligence officer Dr. Anthony Vinci says those days are over.

Vinci explains the "The Fourth Intelligence Revolution" in the latest episode of The Adrenaline Zone. The new target is not just a decision-maker in the White House, and the target is now you.

The End of Anonymity

Two forces drive this shift, and artificial intelligence processes data at massive scales. China uses this capability to expand its reach, and the state built a massive intelligence function. It monitors 1.4 billion citizens every day. Cameras track movement, and algorithms analyze internet activity. The Chinese Communist Party uses this data for control, and now they export this surveillance model globally.

You could hide in a crowd in the past, but today AI monitors thousands of video feeds at once. Software identifies faces instantly, and satellites photograph the planet daily. Your online activity leaves a trail, so agencies gather this data to build a profile of your life.

The Genetic Battlefield

The threat goes deeper than cameras, and it reaches your biology. Vinci highlights a Chinese firm called BGI Genomics. This company collects DNA from millions of people worldwide, and they use prenatal tests and COVID-19 screenings to get samples.

This is not just medical research. Genetic data counts as intelligence data, and it tracks individuals or identifies family lineages. Vinci warns of extreme scenarios, and he suggests this data could help develop bioweapons that target specific groups.

How to Protect Yourself

The government cannot secure every piece of data you generate, and private companies own the servers. Social media apps collect the user logs, so Vinci argues we must "democratize intelligence." Everyday citizens need professional skills to protect themselves, and Vinci suggests three specific mindsets.

1. Think Like a Case Officer

Case officers recruit spies, and they handle secrets. They prioritize security. You do not need to be paranoid, but you need situational awareness. Ask yourself simple questions when you travel or go online. Is this environment safe? Simple vigilance solves half the problem.

2. Think Like an Analyst

Analysts never trust one source, and they compare information to find the truth. Verify a viral post before you share it. Check if outlets with opposing views report the same facts. Be skeptical if only one obscure source reports a story, and this habit protects you from disinformation.

3. Think Like a Science & Technology Officer

S&T officers test new gear for risks, so pause before you download a new app. Ask who owns the technology. A company in California follows American laws, but a company in Beijing answers to the Chinese Communist Party.

The New Reality

The line between civilian life and national security is gone, and we all live in this new environment. Vinci notes that you can no longer hide, and AI monitors the cameras constantly. We must understand the threat to navigate this revolution safely.

Listen to the full episode with Anthony Vinci on The Adrenaline Zone for more strategies.

Transcript

Anthony Vinci:

You can no longer hide. In a world where maybe there were a lot of video cameras taking pictures of streets, you could still hide because nobody was monitoring those cameras all the time. But now, AI could and does monitor those cameras all the time.

Sandy Winnefeld:

It goes without saying that we're living in a world that's experiencing a dizzying rate of technological and societal change.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

Nowhere is this more true than in the shadowy worlds of intelligence and warfare.

Sandy Winnefeld:

Sophisticated space surveillance technologies, surveillance cameras, an explosion of drones, bad actors.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

Our state and non-state adversaries and criminals see all these technologies as a means to an end, a way to make up for other shortcomings and seize the advantage. We're all vulnerable, all of the time.

Sandy Winnefeld:

Former intelligence officer and entrepreneur Anthony Vinci wants us to understand all this and its implications for intelligence and society.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

He's written a fascinating book just out called The Fourth Intelligence Revolution, and we sat down with Anthony for a fascinating and chilling conversation about the future.

Anthony Vinci:

In the Cold War and in every other time of our history, it's been presidents, it's been generals, it's been people like Sandy who have been targeted, not your average everyday person. But now, your average everyday person is targeted.

Sandy Winnefeld:

But first, many thanks to our sponsor for this episode, Culligan. Culligan's drinking water system can deliver the superior filtration and refreshing hydration you need to fuel your high-performance lifestyle. It's Culligan, water you love.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

So, Anthony, welcome to The Adrenaline Zone. We like to start out by asking our guests a little bit about their background. So, can you give us some insight into how you got into the intelligence business in the first place?

Anthony Vinci:

Thanks so much for having me. I started out like a lot of people in my generation; 9/11 happened when I was in my twenties, and I knew that I wanted to serve. My father was a Marine, my brother had served as a Marine, and I knew that it was my turn, so I signed up. A lot of people think this is weird, but I applied on a website, and that's how I became an intelligence officer.

I had some friends who were in the business and told me how to get in, but ultimately, you have to apply on the website. You get selected, you have to get a security clearance, which took a while, and then the next thing I knew, I was being sent to training at the Farm. A little while after that, I ended up in Iraq.

Sandy Winnefeld:

So just a real brief follow-up. We'll talk about your book here in a second, but one of the points you make in your book is, "Hey, we all have to be intelligence officers." I didn't know you could apply on a website. Very cool.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

Well, I have to ask, was it USAJOBS, since it's a civil servant position, or do they have their own website?

Anthony Vinci:

I went to the Agency website. That's how.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

Okay. All right.

Anthony Vinci:

Yeah, all of the agencies have their own website, and you can apply on all of them as far as I know. This was a long time ago when I applied, about 20 years now, but I bet it's still similar.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

So funny. You want to be a spy? Find the website.

Sandy Winnefeld:

Who knew? Who knew?

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

So, you were also a case officer, as we just discussed. You went to the Farm, you had training, and became a case officer. So for our audience, can you let everybody know what that means and what did you do there, just briefly?

Anthony Vinci:

Yeah, a case officer is what a lot of people imagine an intelligence officer does. It's the person in the intelligence world who collects human intelligence. So we're taught to spot, assess, recruit, and handle sources. You learn how to securely do all of that. You learn how to go out and find someone who has information that's important to the U.S. government.

Sometimes you have to do things like go meet them somewhere. Maybe you have to "bump" them, as they say, in a coffee shop or something, and you assess their placement and access. Do they know some secrets that we'd be interested in finding out? For example, maybe they work in a government agency or maybe they work in another country that we want to find information out about.

Then you learn how to recruit that person, how to convince them to do something very hard, which is often in their country considered treason. And so as you can imagine, it's a delicate kind of operation. And then you have to handle them securely because their country or other people in the world may not want them doing this. And so you have to go out and do this in a very, very secure way.

We take it extremely seriously. I think that's something that you don't see in the movies really, how important sources are and how seriously case officers take it when we handle them, because their safety, in some weird way, is almost more important than yours. They may have access that can literally be the difference between war and not going to war. And so that can be very important. You got to keep this person safe, and you got to handle them sometimes in difficult situations.

Sandy Winnefeld:

And when you actually lose one, it's really devastating for the case officers. And every time I go to the Spy Museum, which I did I think last week and gave a talk there, I go by the Tolkachev exhibit. This guy was one of the best spies we ever had in Russia, and of course, he was compromised, unfortunately.

But you were not only with the Agency, but you spent a good time in geospatial intelligence. So tell our listeners what on earth is geospatial intelligence? And you were subsequently recruited to kind of modernize it. So talk to us a little bit about that, Anthony.

Anthony Vinci:

When I was a case officer, I used geospatial intelligence, and that is intelligence that involves imagery. Think about pictures taken by satellites, for example, or by drones. And it involves geospatial information, which is information at a point in time. So I like to explain it as, you know when you go on Google Maps and you see all that data on there and the locations of things or reviews of a restaurant? That's geospatial intelligence, actually.

But we, of course, would use it for different things in intelligence. When I was a case officer, for example, maybe I was planning an operation and I would want to know what was going on around that part of Baghdad. A geospatial analyst could give me that. They could show me the imagery, they could show me what roads were open or not. They could even do things like show me where it might be possible to be shot by a sniper, which, trust me, when you're out there in the middle of a war zone is a pretty scary thing. So these people were extremely important, and it was a privilege to work with them.

So I had left the intelligence community, worked at a company, actually started a tech company, and sold that company. And after I sold my company, I was looking to serve again. I actually thought I was going to be an advisor, and I was invited to be an advisor at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency by Robert Cardillo, who was the director then, and Sue Gordon, who was the deputy director.

They were looking for somebody who knew intelligence but also knew about tech. And at that time, there weren't that many people who had clearances, knew about intelligence, and had been in the tech startup world, and they knew they needed that expertise. So they invited me onto their advisory board. When I got on that board, I took it extremely seriously, and I came up with a whole strategy for what they should do, how the agency should adopt artificial intelligence. And of course, they looked at that and they called my bluff, and they said, "Hey, why don't you come in and you do this?"

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

So watch out what you wish for.

Sandy Winnefeld:

Put your money where your mouth is.

Anthony Vinci:

Yeah, exactly. But I knew that I wanted to get back in the mission, and I missed it. I accepted that job immediately and went back in to help Robert and to help Sue modernize the agency.

Sandy Winnefeld:

Wow. Amazing.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

That's a hard job to modernize a bureaucracy.

Sandy Winnefeld:

Yeah, Sandra just came off of doing that in a different world, and I have plenty of experience with that myself. So, with all this incredible knowledge you gained both as a case officer, as a technologist starting a company, and then coming back into GEOINT, you formed some pretty strong opinions about the world that's changing. And you have recently published a book that is literally hot off the press, The Fourth Intelligence Revolution.

The thesis, which is obvious from the title, is that the world has changed, and the intelligence community needs to change along with it. So let's start with, in your view, what's driving this needed revolution in intelligence? What's going on?

Anthony Vinci:

Backing up, when I joined the intelligence community, it was the War on Terror, and we were fighting two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That was one type of intelligence; that's the one I sort of knew. When I came back into intelligence and I went into NGA, I saw a new form of intelligence forming. That was one that was marked by artificial intelligence and many other things that maybe we can get into.

What was driving it were two things. One was this conflict with China and this competition. It's not that that was new; in some ways, there had been tensions with China before that. But around 2017 or so, which is the time I was at NGA, we were really starting to comprehend as a country that this is the next big competitor. We were going to be in some form of competition; we didn't even know what to call it then. Some people talked about Cold War 2.0 and things like that, but we knew something was happening and that was about to drive a lot of changes in intelligence.

The other thing that was happening, and really one of the big reasons I went back into intelligence and served at NGA, was that technology was about to change everything about intelligence, and specifically artificial intelligence. So at NGA, we realized what's called computer vision, which is kind of AI that allows you to understand what's in an image and see what's changed in it, would change everything about our business fundamentally. Just like we're all seeing today how ChatGPT and that kind of AI is changing everything, we saw it in intelligence. So those two factors, China and AI, have led to this Fourth Intelligence Revolution.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

You mentioned China is our most important threat and is an emerging threat. How is that being manifested? And what are the most important elements of that threat? Because you hear backroom discussions or small things in the media, but I think that is just the tip of the iceberg of what's really going on.

Anthony Vinci:

Well, there's the military threat to start, which is really, China is the only other country save for possibly Russia that presents an actual existential threat to America, where using their nuclear weapons and military equipment, they could very seriously harm the United States or our interests.

But really what I focused on in the book is the intelligence threat. China is an authoritarian nation, and authoritarian nations spy on their own people because they want to know what those people are doing and they want to use that information to control their people. So they have built up what might be the greatest intelligence function in the history of humankind. They have built up an ability to spy on their entire population; 1.4 billion people are monitored every day, even every second in some ways, where they can see what they're doing on the internet, they can see what they're doing on cameras, and so forth.

My belief is that China wishes to extend that surveillance dystopia to the rest of the world, including to America. And so a lot of us see these announcements on the news where they say, "Oh, there was a Chinese hack on the telecom system or on a healthcare system or on a bank," and they stole some data. That's what's happening there. They're stealing information about Americans, and ultimately they want to use that not only to spy on Americans, but I believe ultimately to try to influence us and maybe even control us over time.

Sandy Winnefeld:

Your prologue to your book is fascinating. It really does a nice job of weaving a lot of this together. Maybe not so much the China piece, but it talks about a drone attack in Ukraine and how the many different types of "INTS" can feed into that. Do you want to sort of walk us through that? Because there's a lot of synergy among these different vulnerabilities that we've created.

Anthony Vinci:

The prologue of the book tries to show how all the pieces fit together in intelligence and how there are all these different places and all these different types of sensors that are now collecting intelligence, which I think a lot of people don't realize. There are satellites in space taking pictures all the time, not just visual pictures, for example. Some of them take what's called SAR, or synthetic aperture radar pictures, which can actually see through things. They can see through leaves and so forth; they can see through clouds.

And those satellites aren't just giant government-owned satellites anymore. Some of them are commercial. Some of them are owned by companies and actually don't even cost that much, and they're designed by 27-year-old kids in Colorado or something, which is amazing to think about. So that kind of imagery is being used in Ukraine as we speak. And there are lots of other types of intelligence people don't think about. There are things like electronic warfare that's being used where the signals from everything are just being collected by sensors. Everything that moves on a battlefield, drones are collecting imagery. Think of those as the sensors and devices out there collecting it.

Then there's this whole world of online intelligence where everything you do is being collected on and it's being influenced. And so what I talk about in that prologue is how, well, sometimes what happens is an image of, say, the battlefield is released online, but then it could be changed. It could be literally that image can be changed to make it look like the opposite. Maybe it was an image of a Ukrainian tank being blown up, but someone changes it to make it look like a Russian tank was blown up, or vice versa. And that gets into this world where spying is not just about seeing what's happening in the world; it's about what you think in your mind and how you take information and how intelligence like that can be used to change or influence your thoughts.

Sandy Winnefeld:

As someone who thinks a lot about performance, I've always known how important it is to have top-quality drinking water. But I never thought about the impact that bad water could have on my home until I got a water softener and saw the huge difference it can make. My dishes don't come out of the dishwasher with spots on them, my showers and sinks are cleaner, and I can even use less soap and detergent. If you want to see how much a water softener can help you too, get started by scheduling your free water test at culligan.com.

One of the things that I'm kind of curious about your view on, you know, we used to have - we still do - these school bus-sized government satellites that you mentioned a moment ago. One might do signals intelligence, vacuuming up the electromagnetic spectrum. Another one might be doing electro-optical, taking pictures basically. Another would do synthetic aperture. And we always had a hard time knitting those all together. And now that we have ubiquitous civilian small satellites as you discussed, how are we doing in knitting that information together to make one plus one equal five rather than three? Are we going down the right road there?

Anthony Vinci:

This is the crazy irony of what's happened in intelligence. During the Cold War, information was hard to get. Those satellites, like you're saying, they cost a lot of money; there weren't very many of them. It could be so hard to get that image or to send that case officer to a really hard place like the Soviet Union to get information. Then starting after 9/11 really, we were almost collecting too much information. We were collecting so much, like you say, signals intelligence, so information that was on the internet or being transmitted through cell phones. It became overwhelming. We were only getting a very, very small proportion of it was actually being analyzed.

And now as we go into this Fourth Intelligence Revolution, what's interesting is that AI is now going to be able to unlock all of that intelligence, to connect the dots, to pull out patterns from all of that information, to do things no individual human analyst or intelligence officer could possibly do, and to do them at scale.

And in many ways, that becomes what's the new problem. Because, for example, you can no longer hide. In a world where maybe there were a lot of, say, video cameras taking pictures of streets, you could still hide because nobody was monitoring those cameras all the time. But now actually, AI could and does monitor those cameras all the time. So you can imagine for someone like me who was a case officer, that makes it really hard to do your job when you know you could be watched all the time. There is just no place where you may not be... where you aren't being watched. And that is the new problem in this Fourth Intelligence Revolution.

Sandy Winnefeld:

And it's a real problem for human intelligence. As you just pointed out, ubiquitous technical surveillance is a monstrous problem.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

Put this in a kind of everyday ordinary context, right? You number one, people don't realize how much information is being vacuumed up about them, whether it's from China or anybody else. And people are online so much and the newer generation is just willingly putting things out online. So if I'm an American citizen and we're moving into this realm, or really a citizen anywhere, how do I deal with it? What do I do to try and mitigate it? Why do I care about it? And what advice can you give people?

Anthony Vinci:

This is the reason I wrote the book. I wanted to help the intelligence community, of course, and show them how to modernize. But the real reason I wrote the book is I realized that it's the everyday American who is now being targeted by intelligence. They're being targeted by the Chinese, the Russians, and other intelligence agencies to collect their data and then also to try to influence them using information operations. For example, in the way that the Russians tried to influence the 2016 election and the Chinese and the Russians continue to do. They've not stopped doing this.

And so this to me is the scariest thing. In the Cold War and in every other time of our history, it's been presidents, it's been generals, it's been people like Sandy who have been targeted, not your average everyday person. But now your average everyday person is targeted. And so I wanted to show that and give people a lens to understand that and then show them a few things that you can do. And there are some things that you can do.

One, you could think like a case officer. And a case officer looks around at the world and is a little bit paranoid. They're just a little bit security conscious. We talk about what's called operational security, OPSEC. Doesn't mean you have to be afraid, but you're thinking to yourself, "Is somebody trying to target me?" I liken it to, we're all kind of when we grow up trained to... we're educated on how to deal with maybe a bad neighborhood. You go to a bad neighborhood, maybe put your wallet in your front pocket or something because you know... or if you go out at night in a bad neighborhood, you're just a little more careful, you're a little more mindful of what's going on. Well, the same thing should be true in other parts of your life, especially when you're online or maybe you're traveling abroad in certain countries. Just be a little more careful. Think about, "Hey, could somebody be targeting me?" Just doing that solves half the problem.

Another thing that you can do is think like an analyst. And an analyst triangulates information. They never take one single source at truth value. And so when a lot of us are online, maybe you see something on a newspaper, you see something in a report, and maybe it seems a little strange. Don't just believe that even if it's a newspaper that you've read for a long time. Go check another source. And you know what? If Fox News, CNN, the South China Morning Post, and Newsmax all say the same thing, probably going to be true, right? You've now triangulated that information. It's not so hard to do.

The third thing is think like a science and technology officer. Remember Q from James Bond? There are real-life people - yeah, he's great - so there are real-life people who do that. And what do those people do? Whenever there's a new piece of technology, they take a minute and say, "Hey, could this thing be used against me? Is there some way that somebody could collect my data on it? What are the risks in using this technology?" Just take one second to just think about it.

You know, when you see a new social media app, wonder yourself, "Who owns this app? Is it just a company and they're based in California? Or is it maybe a company that's based in Beijing where we have no legal control over it, like TikTok, and they could use it for collecting my information and doing nefarious things?" Take a minute, assess the risks, and then now you know the risks and you can kind of use it a little more safely. Maybe you're a little more protective of yourself or for your children. That's the other thing: you got to protect yourself and your family.

Sandy Winnefeld:

So I would imagine that one of the best examples of that is very simple: don't click on that link in your email before you take a really close look at it. And I really like the example you use of scrutinizing the information you get because people are so gullible and just propagating the first thing they see online. Pretty amazing.

So I want to ask you about a specific element of this, and that is China vacuuming up our genetic information. And I keep thinking back to anecdotes I've heard in my experience of a foreign leader would have a meeting with a U.S. leader, and when it's over, that foreign leader's team sprays down and wipes down everything that that person has touched so that their genetic material can't be collected, which makes me wonder whether they're collecting ours. So what would they be doing with something like that? Why would they want to collect that?

Anthony Vinci:

The single scariest thing that I learned about in the writing of this book was how genetic information was now part of the game of intelligence and how it was being collected. There is a company, BGI Genomics, which is a Chinese company, that during COVID and since then has been collecting DNA information from people all over the world, from millions of people. They do it through COVID tests. They do it through genetic tests for pregnant women. I mean, really scary stuff.

And when you dig into a company like that, you see that they're actually doing work with the People's Liberation Army. And they even talk about doing work - and this is on the internet, this is published stuff - doing work for population improvement, which is a little scary word. But when you start to put pieces together and you see, okay, you're collecting genetic information from people around the world, you're trying to do population improvement - you're saying you are - and you're working with the second largest military in the world. You start to worry about things like, are they trying to make super soldiers and things like that?

Or can this information be used for intelligence gathering? They could see where you went because they know what your genetic data looks like. So think about recruiting the next generation of case officers in America. And now another country could know the genetic information of every American and use that to make it even harder for us to do our job as intelligence officers.

Or - and this is the scariest scenario to even consider - could people use this kind of genetic information to make bioweapons that would target maybe small populations or individuals? Just genetically targeted at an individual. And this may seem crazy, but actually, in the Truth and Reconciliation Committee after apartheid ended in South Africa, it was uncovered that the South African government had a program to create bioweapons targeted at Black people in South Africa. And that was 40 years ago, 50 years ago. So imagine today.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

Yeah, with the use... you talked earlier about the use of AI to help sift through all this information, and it seems like that is amplifying that possibility now. And actually, you also talked a little bit about AI in the context of how the Chinese are using it. And of course, they've got their "Deep Seek" innovation that they've been working with over there. How does that pose a threat for us?

Anthony Vinci:

If I had one takeaway for the audience, it's never use a Chinese AI system. We, you know, a lot of us have heard about the debate around TikTok because TikTok is owned by, at least for now, still owned by China and can and is used to collect information from people, including children. All this is well established if you read about it. And it sensors information that goes to you; it's been statistically shown how they're censoring information about the Uyghurs or Tiananmen Square and so forth, and can be used to influence what people do, maybe to vote differently or to maybe eventually to say not want to have America defend Taiwan.

AI like Deep Seek is that times ten. Because AI will, I believe, be used in our lives all the time to search and summarize and see and analyze information about the world. It's going to become the lens through which we interact with information. And you've seen, for example, how OpenAI is releasing a web browser. So everything you're going to see online eventually is going to go through these AI systems.

Now, if that's happening through an American company, it can be regulated. You can hold them to account. If it's happening through a Chinese company, you can't. So everything you might say or imply could be seen by the Chinese - the Chinese Communist Party, even the MSS, their security service, their version of the CIA. And then it could be used to not only spy on that information but change it. And maybe even convince you of things on it subtly over time to try to change your mind. Because as we've all seen, you kind of get into these dialogues with ChatGPT and things like this, and it's telling you things, and you're kind of talking to it and talking back. That's how we're going to interact with AI. Now imagine you're interacting with that AI, but it's a little nefarious. It's working for the Chinese government. And that's extremely scary, especially if children were to use it.

Sandy Winnefeld:

You also talk, Anthony, in your book about economic espionage, and that's obviously a real problem for us. Can you run our listeners through your understanding of that?

Anthony Vinci:

One of the things that happened after the Cold War is every other country in the world realized America was the only remaining superpower and there was just no possible way to compete with us in the military. And China realized that. They're trying; they're trying to build up their military. That's a scary thing. But even today they know they couldn't go head-to-head against us. So what they started to do was to use asymmetric means, to use other ways to compete with us. And the number one way was through economics.

They wanted to both harm in many ways our economy and build up their own. And so they started competing with us in that way. They started spying on our companies, stealing intellectual property so they could build their own technologies that would be equal to or maybe sometimes greater than our own. They started targeting our talent, coming after our best scientists and technologists and so forth and trying to bring them to China, recruit them in essence. And so performing economic intelligence on us.

And we as a nation weren't used to that. When we competed with the Soviets, their economy was nowhere near as strong as ours; it didn't matter. So we weren't used to it. And Al-Qaeda and all of the threats before that, it didn't matter. Now it matters. Yet we're still a little nervous about doing economic intelligence. It's not the American way, which is fair. We don't want our government to interfere in our economy. That much I actually agree with.

But the reality is we are in an economic competition. They're stealing our information, and we may need to steal some of their economic information. They may discover something that's important. Imagine this scenario: what if in the next pandemic, China discovered the vaccine and we didn't for whatever reason, and they wouldn't share it with us and American citizens were dying and we needed that vaccine? Do you think it'd be okay if our government, in order to save American people, stole that intellectual property? I think so. I think most people would say that's an acceptable thing to do.

Well, we need those kinds of capabilities because technologies - not just vaccines, but AI and lots of things - are going to be the difference between life and death. They are going to harm what we're doing and they are going to be part of this competition with China. And we need to know what they're doing in everything that they're doing. And so that means our intelligence community needs the ability to collect that intelligence, analyze it, and provide it to decision makers like the president.

Sandy Winnefeld:

Yeah, and it would seem to me that we're a little bit shooting ourselves in the foot when we're not only taking research money away from colleges and universities, but we're also sending people home who might have been foreign nationals who are doing some of that research in the United States. So you get a double whammy there, and those people are only too happy to go someplace else where their talents can be used, which isn't very helpful.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

You're passionate about pushing yourself to always be better. Culligan's water experts feel the same.

Sandy Winnefeld:

That's why their smart reverse osmosis filtration systems do more than deliver ultra-refreshing, pure-tasting water. Their app also lets you set drinking water goals, seek water quality information, and get filter change alerts. And with cleaner, safer, great-tasting water available right from the tap, you can also feel good about all those single-use plastic bottles you're saving from landfills.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

Get started with water you love today. Schedule your free water test at culligan.com.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

If I can follow up on the economic question, though. You mention in your book creating a national - I forget the word, the term you use - but basically like what happened with the intelligence community after 9/11, where there's a center that sort of is bringing in information. That would really change the way we think about intelligence to your point, since it's bringing in some civilian, non-IC components. What sort of barriers to that happening exist to creating an organization like that, do you think?

Anthony Vinci:

I call it a National Economic Defense Center, and the idea is similar to post-9/11, where part of the reason that 9/11 happened was agencies were not sharing information with us. That's what the 9/11 Commission report showed. The FBI and the CIA were not sharing information. And so we realized to fight an adversary like Al-Qaeda, a global networked adversary that didn't care about boundaries - they were operating in a foreign country, they were operating in America - we had to kind of join everybody together. And we did things like we made a National Counterterrorism Center where you had people, and still do, sitting at the table who were at the FBI or at the CIA, who were at different agencies so that they could work together in what's called a whole-of-government approach.

I think that we need the same thing for economics because some things we actually don't want the CIA doing. None of us probably want the CIA spying on American companies, right? Like, nobody wants that, including the CIA, trust me. But the economic threat is there. And we do have government agencies that work with companies: Department of Commerce, Department of Treasury, Department of Labor. Could we get these government agencies to work together, to share authorities, still keep things private, still take care of American privacy, all of those things, but still work together against this threat of economic espionage from foreign countries?

But the thing that's really different today, and that's different than the NCTC, is that you can't just do it with government. This is not just a whole-of-government issue. This is a whole-of-society issue. And you need companies to work together as well; you need a public-private partnership. And so I think this National Economic Defense Center would have, yes, government agencies, but it would have companies working together to try to defend those companies, defend our economy, and defend our system against these adversaries.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

That's a complex undertaking because the commercial sector is so big. You know, we have the ISACs you mentioned in your book - you know, the ISACs that exist like the space one we just started one in the last five years or so. That kind of is a niche thing, but you're talking something even more broad, which is really complicated to institute and practice, I think.

Anthony Vinci:

When I was writing the book, I thought that this was almost a science fiction-like dream of the government working together with industry. And now in this new administration, we are seeing things that I didn't even consider, like the government owning portions of companies, like the investment in Intel. We are seeing types of information sharing, we're seeing the use of golden shares, which is pushing it further and faster than I had ever considered. And it's like writing about AI; it's hard to keep up now, and we're going to have to see how it plays out.

But I would say the hardest part of it is actually this sort of cultural change, this mindset change of what does a government do? What does an intelligence agency do? What does a company do? And that's what's sort of really changing now. I think companies are starting to realize there really is a threat from China, that we could be cut off from rare earths tomorrow and no longer able to produce cars and phones and medical devices, not to mention military equipment that keeps us all safe. And so these are real dangers for all of us. And so we are starting to realize the economic sector is part of national security in a way. And that mindset change, I think, is going to lead to the kind of organizational changes that you kind of need to get companies and the government to work together.

Sandy Winnefeld:

So we talk about economic warfare basically here, and not only the defense, but the offense piece. And you also mentioned Americans don't really like that because we're a free market democracy. There's another type of warfare: information warfare. And you alluded earlier, China is kind of trying to hack our minds in many different ways. What about the offense there? There's something called covert influence operations. I've argued in my Substack, which is called Gray and Gritty, that we need to up our game here. We have the most adept filmmakers, influencers, branders, marketers, and we probably have that as our weakest element of national power. Any thoughts from you on how we might go on the offense on information warfare?

Anthony Vinci:

We have a long history of doing it. So the Office of Strategic Services, the OSS, which was America's first centralized agency and was made during World War II, they recruited ad men from Madison Avenue in New York, people who were making literally advertisements, and they recruited those guys to come in and help make propaganda. We've been doing it ever since.

But to your point, we don't do it, I believe, as much or as strongly as maybe we should. And part of that is because, again, the way our society works, we don't like to do that kind of thing. Whereas in an authoritarian society, that's all they do. They love to control their population, they love to use information against their population, so they're great at it. But we do need to... you know, sometimes when you're in a national security world, you have to do things that we might not consider to be tasteful, that might not be gentlemanly, as people have called it in the past. And that is part of it.

You know, in the military, when you're a soldier, you have to be taught to kill people. That is part of what it is. And when you're in intelligence, you have to be taught to do some dirty tricks. I think we need to come back around and realize that information operations are something that we have to do as well, that it's going to save American lives by doing it, and we need to use technology to do it. Just like China can take advantage of AI, we should take advantage of AI.

Sandy Winnefeld:

Yeah. The argument, the way I've made the argument, is we don't necessarily like doing information operations against another country, but we don't like having nuclear weapons either. And the reason we have them is because the other guy has them and he's using them against us on a daily basis.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

So in your book then you talk about democratizing intelligence. So can you explain a little bit what you mean about that? Because I think it's bigger than just this idea about as a democracy we have to think about doing things that might have been distasteful in the past.

Anthony Vinci:

Well, like I was saying before, I think that the biggest change is that now everyday Americans are the targets of intelligence. And I think that the only way to fight back against that, in essence, is for people to become resilient, to start to think about themselves as intelligence officers and protect themselves. The government should still play a role, of course, but there are limits to what the government can and maybe should do. I think all of us would probably agree that we don't want the government, we don't want the CIA or DIA or ODNI or any of these agencies to come and censor information that we see. That's not what we do in a democracy.

And so when you hear something like "counter foreign malign influence," which sounds like something we should do - it's like, yes, you know, we should shut down what the Russians or Chinese are doing - but there are limits. We shouldn't have that office censoring what we as everyday Americans see. But we're still under threat. So what do you do? Well, I think you need to learn to protect yourself.

And the way I put it is like this: we still have police, we also have a neighborhood watch. You know, we have people who still - it's been going on since the fifties and sixties - walk around neighborhoods and help protect people in that watch. And you learn as you're growing up to protect yourself in a crime-ridden area. You don't leave things out on your car seat when you park it overnight in a bad neighborhood, right? We all learn these things.

Well, it's just like that for intelligence and being targeted. That's what I mean by democratizing. We all need to start to think of ourselves as part of the intelligence ecosystem and world where we're targets, frankly, but also where we can learn to think like and become civilian intelligence officers in a way. And that, I think, is a great thing. It's powerful. It gives people an ability to protect themselves. It also gives you responsibility. And we should all know what's going on in intelligence and have a say and tell our government what it should and shouldn't do. And that's also part of this democratization. No person in America wants there to be another Edward Snowden-type revelation. We don't want that. The way to keep that from happening is to take part in intelligence, to know what's going on, and to vote or tell your elected representative whether you agree with something. So that's part of this democratization as well.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

You know, that implies, though, that we need some sort of a training program, whether it starts in kindergarten or high school or college. Because you're right, I think people do have to become more aware. But not everybody is technically savvy, number one. And number two, you know, some of these things that you're commenting that people learn, they kind of learn instinctively, like from their parents or the groups around them. But we're starting from scratch. What's the best way to start educating people to get to this point?

Anthony Vinci:

I do indeed think that we have to start with children, because children are the target. TikTok targets a generation; it targets Generation Z. And I think that education technologies can be used to target even younger children. And China has the largest education technology industry in the world. They own multiple education technologies like The Princeton Review and Tutor.com, which not a lot of people realize. And these can be used to target how our youngest children think, including my son. So I take this very personally.

And so we need to teach even that youngest generation how to look at information and triangulate it. Like I was saying before - and this can seem crazy, except when you think about it, we already do it for crime. I've taught my son how to be careful in a bad neighborhood already. I bet most parents do. We do it for cybersecurity. My son probably learned to change his password and not click on phishing emails before he could ride a bike. So this is a common thing. And weirdly, we're more obsessed with protecting our computers than we are with protecting our own minds and our own people. And so we should be teaching these ways of thinking similar to the ones I mentioned earlier from an early age, maybe in schools and certainly at home.

Sandy Winnefeld:

So, Anthony, you have been in and out of government a lot, and when you've been out of government, you've been very creative, and now you're out of government. So what are you up to now?

Anthony Vinci:

I'm sort of putting my money where my mouth is. I have now made a company, it's called Veeqo. We're going to launch pretty soon, where we are using artificial intelligence to democratize intelligence. We're giving people the tools to make better judgments, to understand what is happening in the world and what might happen. And that's for everyday people, but it's also for investors and business people and so forth. And we're going to be launching that later this year.

Sandy Winnefeld:

I look forward to it. One of the things that I've stumbled on lately, and you've actually helped me a little bit with this, is something called Polymarket or the prediction markets, where you have people out there making bets on future events. And it's a little complicated. You know, you can buy a share for a dollar that would say the event's going to happen or the event's not going to happen. And the number of people who bet one way or the other is kind of where the prediction is. Right? So it could be a sporting event. It could be, you know, is the Fed going to lower interest rates? It could be almost anything.

But it turns out, I think, that many decision makers are actually looking at these probabilities that the crowd is sourcing and maybe making decisions based on that. Do you have any insights on that and whether it's valuable and whether it could be valuable to the intelligence community? It's a very big business that many people don't understand.

Anthony Vinci:

Yes, it really comes down to this issue that the world is a very complicated place, very chaotic and very hard to predict what will happen, especially in things like politics and geopolitics or financial markets. And so how do you do that better? Well, you can become an expert on something. You can read about it, do a degree, and that's one way to do it. And that can take years.

Another way to do that, though, as it turns out, is this idea: the wisdom of the crowds. If you get enough people making a forecast of what will happen, that forecast will actually be better than any single person in that group could possibly make; it will be more accurate, which is amazing. And so these prediction markets like Polymarket or Kalshi or PredictIt are able to do that because people are getting on them and they make a bet, literally a bet. You put money down and say, you know, "I think this is going to happen" or "I think that is going to happen," "I think this person will win the election" or "this other person will." And when you get enough of those bets, it acts like a wisdom of the crowd and can be very accurate.

Now what's interesting to think about is that artificial intelligence can be good at this stuff too. And one of the things we're doing in my company is actually applying artificial intelligence to make these kinds of predictions as well. And in some cases, it can be even better than these prediction markets.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

Have you ever read the Foundation books by Asimov? Because this sounds very much like the prediction he made about large-scale social behavior being predictable. And you know, he planned this whole series of future events based on that. This sounds very, very similar.

Anthony Vinci:

I have read that book, and the books, and I am a fan. And in fact, when my co-founder and I were first forming this company, we called it Project Seldon, in fact. So, definitely a fan. And I do think this is where it's going. I do think we will have tools... just like anything, it's not truly possible to predict the future. There's never going to be such a thing as a crystal ball because as soon as you start thinking you know the future, that means you're influencing it and the whole world changes. But I do think we can get better and better.

And I think those decisions matter a lot. They'll keep us safer. Because if you're in the government, if you're in law enforcement, if you're in intelligence, better information about the future can help people make better decisions and keep people safe. I think it will make our economy work better, but I think also for regular people it will make life better. You, for example, may wonder yourself, "Should I buy a house now or should I wait six months?" Well, that's great if you're a billionaire and you can hire the best person in the world to tell you whether to do that, and having a financial advisor who costs a million dollars a year. But most people don't have that.

But you still need to make these decisions that are important to you and your family. And so part of what I want to do and part of when I say I want to democratize intelligence is be able to provide those kinds of tools to regular, everyday people.

Sandy Winnefeld:

So the evil, not-so-genius in me wants to ask this question, and that is: if I'm a Polymarket bettor, and I'm watching the trajectory of a particular question, and I can now ask an AI the same question, and the AI comes out with a different answer from what the Polymarket is telling me, would I potentially have an edge there and I might place a bet that would give me an arbitrage advantage in that Polymarket?

Anthony Vinci:

Yes. Could be. And it's possible that one of us on this podcast right now may have done that in the past and may have made a little bit of money. So, absolutely, you can use these tools to do that.

Sandy Winnefeld:

It's a crazy world.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

Interesting thought.

Sandy Winnefeld:

Anthony, I think that's a great way to wrap this up. And I really very much appreciate you coming on. I think what you're doing is terribly important. We need some sort of rattle the chains a little bit in the intelligence community. From my experience on the President's Intelligence Advisory Board, I absolutely resonate with the things that you're saying and appreciate the book for people. It's called The Fourth Intelligence Revolution. Go out and learn about how we can democratize intelligence and what dangers lurk out there. So thanks so much for being with us.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

Thanks for being on.

Anthony Vinci:

Thank you so much for having me. And if I could add one thing, it would be, yes, I want you to buy a book. But actually, what I would really love is if you could recommend the book to somebody who's never read a book about intelligence. Because I do think it's important to people. A grandmother or a nephew who's on Fortnite or someone else. Because I really do think that lots of people are under threat, and I just hope to give them this lens to help them know what's going on and make better decisions. And that would make me very happy.

Sandy Winnefeld:

So I will put a recommendation in my next Substack post for the book. Maybe some people who aren't used to reading intelligence books will pick up on it.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

I'm going to send it to my siblings because they watch way too much Fox News.

Sandy Winnefeld:

Okay. All right.